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Michael Chabon: Pitt's Wonder Boy

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Michael Chabon won a Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, a novel The New York Times described as “generously optimistic about the human struggle for personal liberation.”

Chabon’s literary debut, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a coming-of-age story about a young man recently graduated from Pitt, made Chabon (himself a 1984 Pitt graduate) a best-selling novelist at the age of 25.

His second novel, Wonder Boys, was adapted for a major motion picture starring Michael Douglas, and his Pulitzer-winning Kavalier and Clay celebrates the golden age of comic books of the 1930s through the 1950s. Throughout his career, Chabon has mixed highbrow literary styling with narratives drawn from popular genres like comic books, fantasy, and adventure. A father of four, Chabon has broadened his repertoire to screenwriting and children’s literature. His most recent work, The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man, is an illustrated superhero tale.

Chabon remains connected to Pittsburgh and Pitt. During an unannounced visit to the University in 2007, Chabon advised writing students, “What a good writing program does is give you time to do your writing.”